PATH TO RENAISSANCE

breadcrumbs

There is the old story of Somerset Maugham reading Proust while crossing the desert by camel, and to lighten his load he tore out each page after reading both sides and let it fall behind him—one wants to say the wind was involved, but on most days there was no wind. With or without wind, who had a more memorable reading experience, Somerset Maugham or the one who came after him, the one who found and read a page here, a page there, in some strange new order with stellar gaps?

And of course, I must stop there and look up from the page to imagine this scene: I’ve never read anything by Somerset Maugham and I don’t know what looks like so in my mind, I give him floppy, boyish gray hair and a short gray…